There was a lot of activity with DNA nanotechnology in 2008 with new synthetic bases and a lot of usage of DNA for structures and the precise placement of structures. Some of the big 2008 developments follow. 2009 will see more breakthroughs in this highly active area.

1. Engineering of [more efficient] nucleotide synthesis: We are collaborating with Philippe Marliere on optimizing metabolic pathways to the synthesis of the four dNTPs in vivo.2. DNA secretion: This is a natural process in some bacteria, could be enhanced to prevent (potentially toxic) levels of DNA in vivo.

if Freitas, Merkle, and Moriarty succeed next year, all heck will break loose. Not immediately, of course, but diamond is a very useful engineering material. If we could use it to make cars and buildings, we would. Everything depends on availability and cost — and both depend on technology.

Four years from now, the Zyvex-led DARPA Tip-Based Nanofabrication project expects to be able to put down about ten million atoms per hour in atomically perfect nanostructures, though only in silicon (additional elements will undoubtedly follow; probably taking six months each). At a standard Moore’s Law exponential growth rate (doubling time of 18 months), this Patterned Atomic Layer Epitaxy (Zyvex’s approach) will only get us up to 23,058,430,092,136,939,520,000,000 atoms per hour by 2100 — a few hundred pounds worth.

Does atomically precise tip-based nanofabrication follow Moore’s Law? If we take Eigler’s 35 xenon-atom IBM emblem in 1990 as the start, then that gives us a doubling time of just over 12 months, and that adds up. By 2012, we’ll be doing about ten times better than Moore’s law. And that is without the big kick.

What happens when we use probe-based nanofabrication to build more probes? A massive acceleration in progress - a big kick for nanotechnology

It’s starting to happen now (see “Thermal Actuated Multi-Probes Cantilever Array for Scanning Probe Parallel Nano Writing System” by Watanabe, Isono, et al). Chad Mirkin, who also has another piece of the DARPA Tip-Based Nanofabrication project, has already used 55,000 dip pen nanolithography tips to make 1,600 100 nm dots in under 30 minutes. (Mirkin is using standard microphotolithography MEMS to make the dots; this is the most conservative approach to productive nanosystems. The others include Structural DNA — Rothemund, Nanorex, et. al — and Schafmeister’s Bis proteins, plus a few more not as promising.)

What happens when productive nanosystems get built, and are used to build better productive nanosystems? The exponential increase in atomically precise manufacturing capability will make Moore’s law look like it’s standing still.